Atkins diet? I HAZ QUESTIONS.

[ysabet]

RIGHT.  Question for y'all out there (and answer anonymously if you want, that's fine, or list your name with pride.)

Have any of y'all had experiences, good or bad, with the Atkins Diet?  'Cause I'm looking at it right now.  I need to get in better shape, in better health; I'm tired of being heavier than I ought to be, and I'm not so overweight

Comments

[kosaginolegion]

Low carb diets can be tricky, in my experience. They work, but keeping the lost weight off isn't all that easy. I think I've heard that there are health issues with it that you want to be careful with. But they don't affect everyone, so the best I could say is try it for a while, see how you feel in general and go from there.

(I, personally, am eating slow carbs more, but I don't know how well that works for everyone.)

[dqbunny]

Yes, I have an experience and it was a bad one

[vampireborg]

Then you most likely weren't eating enough, which is REALLY EASY to do on Atkins. Fat is filling, and you feel full longer than you are used to, so you go around without enough calories to function. Also it is easy to get dehydrated which is why they tell you to drink broth to get some salt in.

[dqbunny]

I was following the book, including using the suggested menus in it (which was not conductive to a poor kid's wallet!) Regardless, it just didn't work for me. But, I found something that does, and that's what matters.

[vampireborg]

Yup. I almost died eating carbs, it's the only thing that works for me for seizure control. But my neuro was cool with doing Atkins and I ♥ my RD.

Also I'm dying to know what year you did this. Anything before the 3rd edition is iffy advice wise, he loosened up on the veg right around then, now the rec for induction is 30 carb a day, at least 20 in veg. Given that a cup of lettuce is 0.4 carb, that's quite a bit.

[swordmage]

Haven't tried it. Have a serious thing against the whole 'specific diet' thing. *shrug* Just a general dislike.

What I'm personally doing is eliminating most of the processed food in my diet and trying to be more active. I've got a few apps on my phone which are proving kind of helpful, and we also joined the Y (which is *quite* spiffy, and I don't feel self-conscious there).

[elinor_dear]

Agreed. For the love of god and all that's holy, find a more practical diet.

In the words of Foamy the Squirrel, there's something wrong with a diet that says you can have a pound of bacon, but you can't have an apple...because the apple has carbs?!?!?!

[lazulisong]

Did you talk to my twin yet she always loves to feed people the delicious sugar free koolaid

[vampireborg]

DELICIOUS SUGAR FREE KOOLAIDE.

http://atkins.com/ has some good tools and free food lists, also check their facebook page. I'm on a slightly more extreme form for seizure control at 30 carb a day, but I find it perfectly doable. I can go almost anywhere and order a burger with no bread and a salad, after stage one you can have some wine and hard booze. I drink a lot of whiskey and diet. :)

http://www.glycemicindex.com/ If you are unwilling or unable to dump all the carbs at once or just can't handle switching to a mostly fat diet, try going low GI. I generally save low gi foods for special days or when I can't find something that I can make Atkins safe.

Learn to read labels and know WHAT you eat, even things that you'd think were low sugar get HFCS stuck in them. -_-